Frazier had come to look upon Ali as something less than “a true brother.” Although he once had empathy for him in light of his legal woes with the government, which were cleared up when the Supreme Court upheld his appeal in June 1971, Frazier had grown weary of the ad hominem assault Ali had waged against him and how it uprooted his support in the black community. At the Ohio State Penitentiary in Columbus in November 1971, for a special taping of The Phil Donahue Show, he encountered a pro-Ali inmate population that jeered him and asked if it annoyed him to be called “a great white hope.” Frazier replied that he was nothing of the kind, and that he objected to “Clay always going around knocking white people.” A letter writer to the Philadelphia Daily News observed: “Being black, I feel about 90 percent of our people also feel that Joe (Uncle Tom) Frazier is not the champ of the world. . . . Wake up, Joe, you’re not white.” In an apparent effort to whip Frazier into a fury and get him in the ring again, Ali captured headlines by claiming “white America had given Frazier a crumb.” Along with calling Frazier “ugly,” disparaging his verbal skills, and pointing out that only “twelve or thirteen people” showed up when he sang, Ali was quoted by Stan Hochman in the Philadelphia Daily News as saying: “Man works in a meathouse all his life, he’s thankful for a crumb. White folks who lynched niggers and killed niggers, then give a nigger a crumb and expect him to be thankful. White America is hated, even by white Europeans.”
Irritably, Frazier replied, “Why does he have to talk that way? Why does he talk hatred and separation?”
Going into the Foreman bout, no one could be sure of the extent of the wear and tear Frazier had suffered in his victory over Ali. Close to two years had passed, and he had fought only two bouts, neither of which lasted long enough to provide any definitive answer. On the evening before Super Bowl VI, between the Dallas Cowboys and the Miami Dolphins in New Orleans, he came off a ten-month layoff for a January 15, 1972, bout with Terry Daniels, a handsome former football player from Southern Methodist University who had a 28-4-1 record. Tipping the scales at his heaviest weight ever—215, twenty-four pounds heavier than the challenger—Frazier floored Daniels five times before the fight was stopped at 1:45 of the fourth round. Wryly, Daniels said later, “They needed a math major out there instead of a referee.”
A still-heavier Frazier was back in action four months later in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was paired on May 25 with local favorite Ron Stander, 23-1-1. From across the Missouri River in Council Bluffs, Iowa, Stander was backed by a crowd of admirers wearing straw hats bearing the question, WHO THE HELL IS JOE FRAZIER? The answer to that question would arrive on the end of a left hook. Through four bloody rounds, Frazier—a half pound lighter than Stander at 2171/2 pounds—carved up the so-called Bluffs Butcher into a deli tray before the fight was halted in the corner before the fifth round. To sew the likable lug back together, it took a half hour and seventeen stitches: eleven on either side of his nose, and six above and below his right eye. Something less of a dreamer than her battered husband, Darlene Stander, his wife and high school sweetheart, said famously of the bloodletting that had just occurred: “I’m a realist. You don’t enter a Volkswagen at Indy unless you know a helluva shortcut.”
Unbeaten now in twenty-nine consecutive bouts, Frazier appeared off his game during his preparations for Foreman. Family had come down to Jamaica for what had been planned as a reunion, with Florence, the children, his siblings, and others lounging by the hotel pool. In his autobiography, Inside the Ropes, referee Arthur Mercante would remember that “the atmosphere [in his camp] was too relaxed, too festive. There were parties, barbecuing and songfests long into the night. Frazier seemed more focused on his second career as a rock singer than preparing for a heavyweight title fight.” Eddie Futch was immediately troubled by what he saw when he arrived in Jamaica and told Durham so.
“Yank, do you know what you’ve got here?” Futch said. “You’ve got one big party.”
High rollers had come in from New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. “They were all there,” said Futch. “They all came down to take their vacations.” And Joe joined in. Futch would remember Joe was sitting poolside in an expensive suit when some people in the pool called for him to come in. “Instead of sending someone to get him some trunks, he asked for a pair of scissors,” said Futch. “He cut the legs off the expensive suit pants and got into the pool.” Later, he asked Futch if he could check out a party. He told Eddie he would be back in ten minutes. When fifteen minutes elapsed and Joe was still not back, Futch drove over to the Kingston nightclub where Frazier had said he would be. There, he found Joe up onstage singing with his group, the Knockouts.
Futch was livid. “I went up onstage, grabbed the microphone, and hit him on the head with it,” he said. “I got him out of there.”
Futch was even more concerned by what Frazier had shown during his sparring sessions with Ken Norton, who two months later would upset Ali in San Diego. Futch remembered, “I was surprised by what I saw. It was very even. On the second, I had him spar with Joe [again]. Again, the same thing. By the third day, I called Ken aside and said, ‘There’s something going on in the ring that I can’t fathom. What is going on?’” Norton replied, “He seems to have lost his drive.” With only days remaining before the bout, Futch told Norton he was now on “vacation” and yanked him from the rotation of sparring partners, if only to keep Joe from losing confidence in himself. Contrary to what Foreman later said—that he was never more afraid of an opponent—he observed in the days leading up to the bout: “The end is near for Joe Frazier.” Of the strategy he planned to employ, he simply said, “I’ll just stand there and POP! POP! POP! Just like shootin’ birds off a fence.”
On an evening that Kingston boxing promoter Lucien Chen hoped would bring “a recognition of the fact that Jamaica is a place where astounding things happen,” a crowd of thirty-six thousand pushed through the turnstiles at the National Stadium and were presented with something astounding indeed. With a four-inch edge in height and reach, the six-foot-three Foreman towered over Frazier, their eyes locked in an icy and unflinching stare, as Mercante conducted the prefight instructions in the center of the ring. To equip himself to use his height to his advantage, Foreman had worked assiduously in the weeks leading up to the bout to perfect his right uppercut. For Frazier to be effective, he had to do what he always had: stay down low, get inside, and work the body. But as the first round unfolded, it was clear that Joe was up too high, as Foreman used his superior size to push him off, which he would fourteen times in what Futch called a “fouling tactic.” Then—at 1:40 of the round—Foreman stunned Frazier with a left hook, quickly followed up with a left-right combination, and then dropped him with a concussive right uppercut. From ringside, announcer Howard Cosell shrieked, “Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!”—words that would live on in schoolyards across America whenever any foe was subdued, particularly if his surname happened to be “Frazier.”
Twelve-year-old Marvis Frazier shouted from ringside, “Get up, Pop!”
Frazier sprang up and waited out the mandatory eight-count. Again, he engaged Foreman, who drove Joe to the ropes with a volley of hard blows and floored him once more with a cruel right uppercut, perhaps the hardest punch Frazier ever absorbed. From ringside, Marvis shouted, “Stop playing, Pop! Get up!” Again, Frazier scrambled to his feet. Again, Mercante counted to eight. He would remember, “I actually had to restrain Frazier from getting back at Foreman too quickly. This guy was one tough son of a bitch.” Seconds before the round ended, Foreman popped yet a third bird off the fence, as it were, when he caught Joe with a sequence of one-two power punches that sent him sagging to the canvas. Since the rules that were in force stated that a downed fighter could not be saved by the bell, Mercante continued his count after the round had ended. Marvis yelled, “Stay down, Pop!” Unsteadily, Frazier regained his footing and staggered back to his corner, where Durham gave him a deep whiff of smelling salts. A roar went up
from the crowd as Cosell exclaimed, “Oh, what a first round!” Joe drooped on his stool, his eyes clouded over, as Durham affixed an ice bag to his neck.
“C’mon, Joe, baby!” Angelo Dundee shouted from his seat at ringside. With a figurative wink, Ali had sent Dundee to Kingston under express orders to “make sure nothing happens to Joe Frazier”—and thus preserve the jackpot that awaited them both in their rematch. But as the second round got under way, Big George was on top of him again. Slipping a wild left hook, Foreman staggered Frazier with an overhand right, which buckled his knees. Instinctively, he gravitated to ring center. As Frazier turned away, Foreman caught him over the shoulder with a chopping right hand to the jaw that sent him again sagging to the canvas. Gamely, Joe got up. Down he went again seconds later under the crushing force of a left hand—and again he got up, blood now trickling from his mouth. Mercante observed in his autobiography that “Frazier was undergoing the worst aerial bombardment since Thirty Seconds over Tokyo.” In keeping with the tradition of giving the champion “every chance,” Mercante allowed the drubbing to continue. Foreman seized upon Frazier once again and tagged him with a right uppercut to the chin that lifted him off his feet and dropped him to one knee. Standing over him, Foreman shouted to Durham, “Stop it or I’ll kill him.” As Joe picked himself off the floor for a sixth time, Mercante stepped in and waved the fight over. The world had a new heavyweight champion.
As Foreman was carried from the ring on the upraised hands of his jubilant fans, Frazier was escorted back to his dressing room by a phalanx of police with riot-control shields. He held his head high. When he spoke with reporters a half hour later, he had a cut on his lower lip that a doctor had sewn back together. “I underestimated him,” Joe said. “He was strong. He hit so hard. That first [knockdown], I should have stayed down [low] and protected myself. But I went back at him. I was such a bullhead, you know? I never got it together after that.” Someone asked him if there was any truth to the belief by some that the Ali fight had left him depleted. “A lot of people say a lot of things,” Joe said with a shrug. “There will be another day.” Ali was not so certain. Contacted by a reporter, he scoffed that “Frazier is a dumb, dumb, dumb fighter. . . . If he had been smart, he would have fought me again and then he would have made some big money. . . . He’s finished.” But in an interview with Hochman back in Philadelphia two weeks later, Frazier conceded that his undoing at the hands of Foreman was a consequence of his own foolish pride. Never one to back up an inch in the ring, he got up off the floor and reengaged Foreman as if his manhood had been challenged in a Philadelphia gym war. Now, Frazier said, there was only one place for him to go: back to the drawing board.
On his way back to the gym and the challenges that awaited him there, Frazier stopped in Rotonda, Florida, to participate in The Superstars, a two-day, made-for-television event that showcased nine of the top athletes of the day across ten disciplines, including tennis, golf, swimming, bowling, weight lifting, baseball hitting, table tennis, the one-hundred-yard dash, the half-mile run, and bike racing. Competing along with Frazier were pole vaulter Bob Seagren, Alpine skier Jean-Claude Killy, tennis champion Rod Laver, race car driver Peter Revson, baseball star Johnny Bench, NBA star Elvin Hayes, NHL standout Rod Gilbert, bowler Jim Stefanich, and NFL legend Johnny Unitas. Each was asked to enter seven of the ten events.
Choosing to take a pass on golf, tennis, and table tennis, Frazier should have found a way to avoid the swimming pool instead. Matched with Revson, Killy, and Seagren in the first heat of the fifty-meter swim, Frazier proved that Dolly knew what she was doing when she warned Joe to stay away from the creek as a boy. At the gun, Frazier splashed into the water in a belly flop and quickly fell to the rear, as ABC Sports reporter Jim McKay announced: “And Joe Frazier is well, well behind.” As Revson surged to the lead—he would be the eventual winner in 32.95 seconds—Frazier paddled hard but seemed to get nowhere. He stopped at the wall of the pool, took five deep breaths and continued, his chin craned above the surface. As he exited the pool and grabbed a towel, the crowd stood and applauded. Wryly, he later observed: “The water hit back.”
Of the other sports he entered, he did not do especially well in any, finishing near or in the back of the pack in baseball hitting, bowling, the hundred-yard dash, and the bike race. Given his upper-body strength, it seemed likely that he would clean up in the weight lifting competition. But somehow he came in second to Seagren, who won the competition with a 170-pound lift. To even his own surprise, Frazier could not surpass or even equal that. Using only his arms instead of his whole body, he gripped the bar and lurched forward before letting the weight clang to the ground. “I feel sorry for Joe,” said Seagren, who had some training in weight lifting with decathletes at Southern Cal. “He was fighting himself just taking the bar off. If someone had given him some instruction, he would have lifted 240.” Overall, Frazier finished tied for last with Unitas and collected thirty-six hundred dollars in prize money. The winner was Seagren, who took home a check for $39,700 ($208,968 in 2018 dollars).
“I think I’m gonna retire,” Frazier joked. “This ain’t my year.”
And it would only get worse.
* * *
Spread across 366 acres in Beaufort County, Brewton Plantation was once worked by black slaves whose ownership was passed down through the generations along with the deed to the property. Originally part of a two-thousand-acre royal grant that was bestowed by King George II upon Landgrave Edmund Bellinger and Captain John Bull in 1732, it was handed down in 1771 to Mary Izard Brewton, who was lost at sea four years later with her husband Miles and three children while sailing from Charleston to Philadelphia. Burned down a century later by General Sherman on his March to the Sea, it was later rebuilt and passed through the hands of a succession of owners. In 1930 it was bought by John R. Todd, the principal builder of Rockefeller Center. Out-of-state investors purchased the estate upon his death in 1945 and allowed it to go to seed in the years before Cloverlay lawyer Bruce Wright acquired it in May 1971 as an investment for Joe, who approved the purchase without first seeing it. When he saw the condition it was in, he was furious with Wright. Windows were broken, fences were down, the fields were overgrown, and the ponds were choked with weeds. But when he calmed down, he decided, “Hell, I’ve worked worse land than this.” And so he rolled up his sleeves.
Only nineteen miles from his boyhood home in Laurel Bay, the plantation seemed to be on the other side of the world to Dolly, who was set in her ways and had a particular attachment to the house that her husband had built for them. But she took her “critters” with her, a few hogs, some chickens, and a goat called Billy; planted rows of vegetables out back; and saw to her daily chores, her daughters by her side and grandchildren underfoot. Every day, she would pack her pipe with Carter Hall tobacco and sit on the long porch with her Bible, which granddaughter Dannette helped her to read, or sing to herself a gospel favorite, “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross.” Whenever Joe showed up—usually four times a year—he would find himself shelling beans with her on the porch or doing odd jobs around the place, such as scraping old paint, repairing fences, and clearing land. Surveying the expanse of his acreage on a tractor, he envisioned one day buying a herd of cattle. Joking, he said he would sell it to Cross Brothers, the slaughterhouse where he had worked as a young man in Philadelphia, if only to show them how far he had come since they dropped him from the payroll when he came back from the Olympics with a cast on his hand.
Behind the wheel of one of his Cadillacs, Joe would roll up to “the big house” with members of the Knockouts in tow and droves of other people at his heels. “It was always party time when Uncle Billy came around,” said his niece Dannette. “You know that expression, ‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas?’ Well, what happened at the plantation . . .” Seven months before he fell to Foreman, he held a Fourth of July party that lasted a full week as hundreds of relatives, friends, and curious Beaufortonians poured onto the sprawling prop
erty to rub elbows with the Champ. As Les Pelemon remembered, long outdoor tables were crowded with all sorts of “down-home cookin’”—barbecue, fried chicken, fish, and ribs, accompanied by sides of corn on the cob, potato salad, and greens. Large quantities of beer and liquor flowed liberally from an open bar, including jugs of moonshine. “Joe knew where to go in the county to get the good stuff,” said Pelemon. None of this sat well with Dolly, who Dannette said would give her youngest son an earful.
“You think I care about Joe Frazier this, Joe Frazier that?” Dolly would say, her voice rising. “You think I care about all these people? Billy, I want to know if you love the Lord. I want to know: Are you going to get into the Kingdom of Heaven?”
“Mama,” Joe would reply. “I bought you this house. . . .”
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